Virtue and Self-Interest in the Design of Constitutional Institutions
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Lewis A. Kornhauser
Constitutional political economy addresses four questions: (1) the causal question: What explains the constitutional institutions we observe? (2) the consequential question: What consequences do constitutional institutional have? (3) the ideal question: What constitutional institutions does justice require? and (4) the design question: What constitutional institutions are best for a polity given the constraints imposed by its current situation? Answers to the ideal and design questions require a theory of behavior that predicts how individuals will behave within constitutional institutions. Analysts usually assume that this theory of behavior corresponds to the explanatory theory developed to answer the second, consequential question. This essay argues that the assumption of rational self-interested behavior as the basis for a behavioral theory is not justified.
©2011 Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Article
- Constitutional Consequentialism: Bargain Democracy versus Median Democracy
- Virtue and Self-Interest in the Design of Constitutional Institutions
- Economic Analysis and the Design of Constitutional Courts
- Ruling Majorities and Reasoning Pluralities
- The Condorcet Jury Theorem and Judicial Decisionmaking: A Reply to Saul Levmore
- Defining Citizenship
- Economic Culturalism: A comment on Dennis Mueller, Defining Citizenship
- Party Primaries as Collective Action with Constitutional Ramifications: Israel as a Case Study
- The Primaries System and Its Constitutional Effect: Where is the Revolution?
- On Constitutional Processes and the Delegation of Power, with Special Emphasis on Israel and Central and Eastern Europe
Articles in the same Issue
- Article
- Constitutional Consequentialism: Bargain Democracy versus Median Democracy
- Virtue and Self-Interest in the Design of Constitutional Institutions
- Economic Analysis and the Design of Constitutional Courts
- Ruling Majorities and Reasoning Pluralities
- The Condorcet Jury Theorem and Judicial Decisionmaking: A Reply to Saul Levmore
- Defining Citizenship
- Economic Culturalism: A comment on Dennis Mueller, Defining Citizenship
- Party Primaries as Collective Action with Constitutional Ramifications: Israel as a Case Study
- The Primaries System and Its Constitutional Effect: Where is the Revolution?
- On Constitutional Processes and the Delegation of Power, with Special Emphasis on Israel and Central and Eastern Europe
